UK rap hero Stormzy has been in the news lately for his highly entertaining feud with grime forebear Wiley. But he still has a new album to promote, so for his US TV debut on The Tonight Show last night, there was no "Disappointed," no "Still Disappointed," no coffee cup.
Instead, Stormzy performed "Crown," the quasi title track from his recent Heavy Is The Head LP. Rather than a gleefully ferocious grime banger, it's a soft, slow, gospel-inflected hip-hop ballad, the sort of song Wiley has been giving Stormzy shit for releasing. Fair point: Stormzy is at his best when he's tearing into colorful, aggressive grime production. Still, part of the reason Stormzy has become such a big deal is that he's good at doing a lot of things, even plaintive emotional pop crossover moves. Hell, even his song with Ed Sheeran, the source of so much of Wiley's criticism, was one of the only redeeming parts of Sheeran's recent No.6 Collaborations Project.
Watch Stormzy's "Crown" performance below.
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Heavy Is The Head is out now via #Merky/Atlantic.
